The basic art of vehicle wheel alignment using imaging cameras and targets has become commonplace in the industry. A variety of target configurations have been introduced by the practitioners of the art with the most common being a flat plane containing highly visible shapes arranged in known or determined relative orientations to each other on the plane. The software algorithms of each wheel alignment system is designed to view these targets and through various methods, determine the wheel alignment angles necessary to determine the in or out of spec condition of the vehicle wheel alignment. While it is possible to look at the targets produced by the various practitioners and make some assumptions regarding their original manufacturer, it is not currently possible to easily and conclusively identify a copied target. Furthermore, it is currently possible for a copied target to be introduced into a proprietary wheel alignment system.
Intellectual property piracy is a pervasive problem in wheel alignment systems and pirated versions of alignment systems have been found around the world. The challenge of quickly and conclusively identifying a copied wheel alignment system has been an ongoing problem. Hence, a need exists to visually identify that a wheel alignment system is a copied system and make it impossible to directly copy the alignment system operating software or firmware and enable a functional alignment system without the visual identification being present.